The History of the Global Warming Scare
[last update: 2009/07/28]
Background
The U.N.-based IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change) produced its latest report in 2007 (AR4). Its position on global
warming (based on the outputs of computerized climate models) indicates that the
models only depend on anthropogenic CO2 after 1970 – prior to that, warming
and cooling is explained by natural factors. So even though industrial
civilizations have been producing increased amounts of CO2 since the late
1800s, it only becomes a factor in the models after 1970. The following
figure combines the IPCC AR4 figure SPM-3 and the temperature anomalies 1850
– 2008 (Hadley Centre data [http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/]
– the data used by the IPCC).
In the 1970s there were many media reports about the
coming ice age – global cooling was occurring and society was encouraged to
be fearful and to act to prevent it.
Time magazine, 24 June 1974:
See: http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/Consensus.htm
for information on the global cooling consensus and the global warming
consensus.
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IPCC
History
The IPCC was formed in 1988 with
the purpose of assessing “the scientific, technical and socioeconomic
information relevant for the understanding of the risk of human-induced
climate change.” -- i.e. its main goal is based on the assumption of
“human-induced climate change” – there was never an attempt to evaluate the
scientific evidence of the cause. The IPCC released reports in 1990,
1996, 2001 and 2007. Although the IPCC has become the “definitive” authority
and always makes statements regarding the definite human causation and
upcoming disaster, it has never provided substantial scientific evidence that
anthropogenic CO2 is the cause. The only evidence provided is a correlation
with CO2 since 1950, but mainly the output of computer models. Solar
irradiance is not incorporated.
Thus in just over 10 years, the consensus switched from
global cooling to global warming – but the definition of climate is “average
weather over 30 years”. So how did this sudden switch come about, along with
its definitive a priori assumption of “human-induced climate change”?
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United
Nations
The United Nations started promoting environmental
concerns in 1971 with the Conference on the Human Environment in Founex,
Switzerland, organized by Maurice Strong. This conference focused on the
differences between environmental problems occurring in the developed countries
(“largely the outcome of
a high level of economic development”) and the developing countries (“predominantly problems that
reflect the poverty and very lack of development of their societies”).
The conference recommended that “The
developed countries should ensure that their growing environmental concern
will not hurt the continued development of the developing countries”. [Ref.1]
Maurice Strong was also the Secretary-General of the 1972
Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. The 1972 Stockholm Conference
led to the creation of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) with
Maurice Strong as its first Executive Director (1971-1975). UNEP’s
headquarters were located in Nairobi, Kenya, to continue the conference theme
of a link between environment and development issues. However, this location
limited its interaction with other U.N. agencies (located mainly in Geneva
and New York) and led to the movement of environmental leadership to a NGO,
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and its
fund-raising arm, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The IUCN is located
just outside Geneva so its staff can interact easily with the UN and its
specialized agencies in Geneva such as the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO). [Ref.2]
Maurice Strong stated at the IUCN 2009 meeting: “In my opening speech at
Stockholm [1972]
I cited climate change as one of the key issues” [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8OiDUtC2nA].
So during the cooling phase and during the era that the IPCC models say
natural factors can explain it all, Strong knew better – climate change would
be a key issue.
The IUCN was created in France in 1948 (originally as the
International Union for the Protection of Nature, it became the World
Conservation Union in 1990) [Ref.3]. It was created with a beneficial goal of
protecting species and environments, and later turned to “sustainable
development”. In the 1970’s Maurice Strong was the director of the IUCN and expanded
it to include NGOs, which now control its agenda. The IUCN promotes " lifestyles, based in ecospiritual practice" [Ref.4]. In 1996 President Clinton issued Executive Order 12986, which stated, in part:
"I
hereby extend to the International Union for Conservation of Nature and
Natural Resources [IUCN] the privileges and immunities that provide or
pertain to immunity from suit”. He did not
grant full immunity to the IUCN (as can be done as part of the International
Organizations Immunities Act) but granted mainly the parts of the Act
concerning freedom from taxation. The
organization's Commission on Environmental Strategy and Planning, claims a
mandate to "change human behavior" by using a strategy "based
less on the facts ... than on the values they hold." [Ref.4]. Steven Rockefeller (often described as the
father of sustainable development), co-authored a book in 1992 called “Spirit
and Nature: Why the Environment Is A Religious Issue” describing the
principles espoused by the IUCN.
The World Commission on Environment and Development was
created in 1983 - popularly known as the Brundtland Commission after the
chair, Gro Harlem Brundtland (at the time Prime Minister of Norway and former
vice president of the World Socialist Party). Maurice Strong who was a vice
president of the World Wildlife Fund until 1981, was appointed to the
Brundtland Commission, which published its report “Our Common Future” in
1987. It recommended the creation of a universal declaration on environmental
protection and sustainable development in the form of a new charter.
In 1989 Maurice Strong began
preparations for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development
(UNCED), held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (“The Earth Summit”). The IUCN had a
major role in organizing the conference. [Ref.5]. Strong Stated: "It is clear that current
lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle-class ...
involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and
‘convenience’ foods, ownership of motor-, numerous electric household
appliances, home and workplace air-conditioning ... expansive suburban
housing ... are not sustainable." In the months leading up to
the 1992 Rio conference, Strong (a Canadian who maintains his primary
residence in the United States), made various statements against the middle
class of the industrialized world. He declared that "the United States is clearly
the greatest risk"
to the world’s ecological health. This was so, he said, because, "In
effect, the United States is committing environmental aggression against
the rest of the world." [Ref.6]
In 1991 the “The Working Group
of Religious Communities on UNCED” – an organization of religious communities
from around the world created the “One Earth Community,” as part of the UNCED
preparatory process for the drafting of the Earth Charter. [Ref.7]
At the UNCED plenary session
address, Earth Summit Secretary-General Maurice Strong directed the world’s
attention to the Declaration of the Sacred Earth Gathering, which was part of
the pre-Summit ceremonies. “The
responsibility of each human being today is to choose between the force of
darkness and the force of light. We must therefore transform our attitudes
and values, and adopt a renewed respect for the superior law of Divine Nature." The ceremony
program said that the sacred earth drummers would "maintain a continuous heartbeat
near the official site of the Earth Summit, as part of a ritual for the
healing of our Earth to be felt by those who are deciding Earth’s fate."
[Ref.6].
Although the UNCED did not
succeed in reaching an agreement on the Earth Charter at the 1992 conference,
one achievement was the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The UNFCCC
document states: “human
activities have been substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations
of greenhouse gases, that these increases enhance the natural greenhouse
effect, and that this will result on average in an additional warming of the
Earth’s surface and atmosphere and may adversely affect natural ecosystems
and humankind, … The ultimate objective of this Convention … is to achieve …
stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level
that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate
system.” Also:
“the largest share of historical and current global emissions of greenhouse
gases has originated in developed countries, that per capita emissions in
developing countries are still relatively low and that the share of global
emissions originating in developing countries will grow to meet their social
and development needs … The developed country Parties …
shall provide new and additional financial resources to meet the agreed full
costs incurred by developing country Parties in complying with their obligations” [Ref.8].
A major change in the definition of climate change has
then taken place. The UN IPCC, founded in 1988, defined climate change as “any change in climate over time
whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity”.
But the UNFCCC in 1992 defined climate change with a much narrower definition
of “a change of climate
which is attributed directly or indirectly to human activity that alters the
composition of the global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural
climate variability over comparable time periods.” By the UNFCCC
definition, climate change due to land use changes (such as converting
forests to agriculture, etc., which have been shown to affect climate) is not
climate change; climate change due to changes in natural factors such as
solar variability is not climate change. They are limiting the definition to human
emissions altering the composition of the atmosphere.
Following the UNCED 1992
conference, Maurice Strong created the Earth Council to promote Agenda 21.
Agenda 21 was produced at the 1992 UNCED. From Agenda 21: “Much of the
world's energy, however, is currently produced and consumed in ways that
could not be sustained if technology were to remain constant … All
energy sources will need to be used in ways that respect the atmosphere … the
major cause of the continued deterioration of the global environment is the
unsustainable pattern of consumption and production, particularly in
industrialized countries … In industrialized countries, the consumption
patterns of cities are severely stressing the global ecosystem “ [Ref.9]
Agenda 21 has an entire
chapter devoted to deforestation (Chapter 11), which states: “Many developed
countries are confronted with the effects of air pollution and fire damage on
their forests” and yet there is no mention in the entire chapter of
the serious deforestation happening in developing countries where most of the
world’s forests are being destroyed for charcoal production and subsistence
farming. Each chapter has sets of activities and implementation plans along
with a statement that “The Conference secretariat has estimated the average total
annual cost of implementing the activities of this programme to be about $xx
million [amount varies by chapter etc.] from the
international community on grant or concessional terms.” The entire
Agenda 21 is basically devoted to developing a means for fund transfers from
developed to developing countries.
Following the UNCED, UNEP commissioned a Global
Biodiversity Assessment in 1993. A UNEP document (by a director of the WWF)
states: “If climate
change radically alters the patterns of agriculture throughout the world, as
inevitably it will, where will the genetic material come from to produce the
new crop varieties on which human survival will depend? … the greatest gene
bank of all is nature, and this is being destroyed at an increasing rate.
This is the conclusion of the Global Biodiversity Assessment, the most
comprehensive analysis of the science underpinning biological diversity ever
undertaken. … Unlike the climate change and ozone treaties, the Convention
on Biological Diversity was not preceded by a comprehensive scientific
assessment. Scientists persuaded politicians and lawyers that biological
resources were being destroyed so fast that the future well-being of the
human race could be imperiled.” [Ref.10] there was no attempt at
science in this case.
In 1994 Maurice Strong launched a new Earth Charter
Initiative along with Mikhail Gorbachev, who was president of Green Cross
International. Over the next few years, the Earth Charter was developed, in
consultation with religious and spiritual advisory groups [Ref.8]. The Earth
Charter Commission was formed in 1996 under the leadership of Strong and
Gorbachev along with various religious members. The Commission appointed
Steven Rockefeller (a professor of religion and ethics) to chair the drafting
committee. In 1999 consultations on the Earth Charter were held at the Parliament of the
World’s Religions in Cape Town, South Africa and in 2000 the final version
was issued following a meeting at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.
In 2000, the IUCN co-hosted the first “Earth Forum” along
with the Earth Council, run by Maurice Strong, who also addressed the IUCN’s
congress, urging the adoption of the “Earth Charter” [Ref.11]. Strong said: ”The unique character of IUCN as
a global organization with both governmental and non-governmental members: I
am greatly encouraged at revitalization of the long-standing partnership
between IUCN and WWF. This, together with your new partnerships with
organizations like the Earth Council and University for Peace, and links with
the World Economic Forum and World Business Council for Sustainable
Development provide IUCN with an unprecedented opportunity for leadership
in developing the new mechanisms of global governance. These, I am
persuaded, involve a move away from traditional patterns of centralized
control to the forming of coalitions and networks of all major actors around
specific issues. Indeed, this is what UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan is
proposing under his program of reform and his new vision for the future of UN.
… IUCN has been deeply involved in the process of formulating the Earth
Charter which is complimentary to and supportive of your Covenant.”
[Ref.14]
An “ark” (the “Ark of Hope”) was created in 2001 as a “place of refuge for the Earth
Charter document … handwritten on papyrus paper” [Ref.12], as well as
a refuge for the “Temenos books” – books “filled
with pages of visual prayers/affirmations for global healing, peace, and
gratitude”. The ark resembles in size the biblical Ark of the
Covenant, complete with carrying poles that “are
unicorn horns
which render evil ineffective”, and with sides with paintings
representing earth elements (i.e. scientific elements such as earth, air,
fire, water and spirit). “Symbols
of faith from traditional religions and indigenous societies surround the top
panel of "Spirit"”. At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable
Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, the Ark of Hope was ceremoniously
offered to the world. [Ref.12].
Over the years Maurice Strong served as president of the
World Federation of United Nations Associations, on the executive committee
of the Society for International Development, and as an advisor to the
Rockefeller Foundation and the World Wildlife Fund, and importantly on the
Commission on Global Governance (CGG).
The CGG was established in 1992, after the Rio conference,
at the suggestion of Willy Brandt, former West German chancellor and head of
the Socialist International. The CGG denies advocating a one-world
government: "We are
not proposing movement toward a world government," reassuringly write
Co-Chairmen Ingvar Carlsson and Shridath Ramphal, “… [but] this is not to say
that the goal should be a world without systems or rules."
[Ref.13].
The concept of global governance was promoted in 1991 by
the Club of Rome (of which Strong was a member), which issued a report called
The First Global Revolution, which asserted that current problems "are essentially global and cannot
be solved through individual country initiatives [which] gives a greatly
enhanced importance to the United Nations and other international
systems." Also in 1991 Strong claimed that the Earth Summit, of which he
was Secretary General, would play an important role in "reforming and
strengthening the United Nations as the centerpiece of the emerging system of
democratic global governance." In 1995, in Our Global Neighborhood,
the CGG agreed: "It is our firm conclusion that the United Nations must
continue to play a central role in global governance." the Commission's
recommendations: for instance, that some UN activities be funded through
taxes on foreign-exchange transactions and multinational corporations.
Economist James Tobin estimates that a 0.5 per cent tax on foreign-exchange
transactions would raise $1.5 trillion annually -- nearly equivalent to the
U.S. federal budget. It also recommended that "user fees" might
be imposed on companies operating in the "global commons."
including carbon taxes, which would be levied on all fuels made from
coal, oil, and natural gas. "[Ref.13].
In 1996 Maurice Strong was special advisor to UN Secretary
General Boutros Boutros-Ghali. By 1997 Strong was Senior Advisor to UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan; Senior Advisor to World Bank President James
Wolfensohn; Chairman of the Earth Council; Chairman of the World Resources
Institute; Co-Chairman of the Council of the World Economic Forum; member of
Toyota's International Advisory Board. [Ref.13]. In 1998, while working as a
special adviser to Kofi Annan and working on Annan’s reform plan for the
entire U.N. Secretariat (as Executive Coordinator for UN Reform), Strong
helped structure a new office inside the Secretariat called the U.N Fund for
International Partnerships (UNFIP). This was set up to channel Ted Turner’s
$1 billion gift to the U.N. directly through the Secretariat. He also joined
the U.N Foundation’s board of directors [Ref.15]. It was unclear how the UN
could justify accepting private foundation funds, which is a violation of the
UN Charter. Article 17, Section 2 of the charter states that UN expenses
"shall be borne by the Members as apportioned by the General
Assembly." This requirement is supposed to prevent private interests
like the UN Foundation from exercising undue influence over the world body.
[Ref.16].
The World Resources Institute (WRI) was started in 1983.
One of its goals is “to
protect the global climate system from further harm due to emissions of
greenhouse gases and help humanity and the natural world adapt to unavoidable
climate change.” It’s web site states: “Climate change is
recognized by WRI as a critical threat to people’s lives and the environment.”. Maurice Strong was the WRI’s Chairman until 1998, when he
was replaced by William Ruckelshaus. Ruckelshaus was at the time also
Chairman of the Board of Browning-Ferris Industries – the world’s second
largest waste disposal company (later became part of Allied Waste).
Ruckelshaus was a past member of the President's Council on Sustainable Development,
and was the U.S. representative to the United Nations World Commission on
Environment and Development from 1983 to 1987. Current board members include
Leslie Dach (Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Government
Relations for Wal-Mart Stores) and Al Gore (Chairman of Generation Investment
Management, “a
London-based firm that is focused on a new approach to Sustainable Investing”)
[Ref.30]
From 2003 to 2005 Kofi Annan’s personal envoy to Korea was
Maurice Strong, which brought him into close contact with the South Korean
government, where Ban Ki-Moon (who took over from Annan in 2007 as U.N.
Secretary-General), was then foreign minister [Ref.15]. One of Ban’s first
acts when he took charge at the U.N. was to appoint Alicia Barcena, a Mexican
environmentalist as his head of management. Strong had brought Barcena into
the U.N. in 1991 to help organize the 1992 Earth Summit. To prepare and then
follow up on the Rio agenda, Strong founded a network called the Earth
Council Alliance, in which Barcena served until 1995 as the founding director
of the flagship chapter, based in Costa Rica. She then moved on to jobs
inside the U.N. system, including work with UNEP and UNDP. When Strong took
charge of the University for Peace along with his other projects in 1999, he
invited the Costa Rica Earth Council to move its offices onto the U Peace
campus, where it was absorbed into the U Peace structure [Ref.15].
(This document, with its focus on the UN, skips over
Maurice Strong’s corporate business career, which includes running
Petro-Canada, Ontario Hydro, as well as various other major positions at
various resource companies – see the references.) In 1978 Maurice Strong
acquired the Colorado Land & Cattle Company, which owned 200,000 acres of
San Luis Valley in Colorado -- from Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
[Ref.17] His company (American Water
Development, Inc - AWDI) then applied
for rights to sell water from the aquifer lying beneath Baca Ranch. Local
ranchers, farmers, and environmentalists teamed up to fight the water deal,
fearing the water exportation could lower the water table and hurt both
nearby well owners and the fragile ecology of the Great Sand Dunes. Voters
within the five-county district overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative
allowing the district to borrow up to $472,000 from local banks for legal
costs to fight against Strong. The court case dragged on for eight years
until 1994, when the Colorado Supreme Court denied AWDI's water-rights
application. [Ref.19] After the water sale failure, much of the ranch was
sold to the Nature Conservancy and then the federal government to expand the
Great Sand Dunes National monument and turn it into a National Park. But the
remainder became the new age religious community run by Strong’s wife Hanne.
[See Ref.18 for partial information on the Baca / Crestone community].
Strong’s business dealings lead one to wonder whether he is really an
environmentalist or simply a major power seeker. [See Ref.20].
One of Maurice Strong’s
accomplishments was enlisting certain NGOs as part of the UN process.
Recently at Bali they have been getting more open about the real point of the
global warming scare: The Climate Action Network web site provides the
following discussion: "A common theme was that the
“solutions” to climate change that are being posed by many governments, such
as nuclear power, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and biofuels are
false and are not rooted in justice. ... a climate change response
must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources" [Ref.23].
France’s former President Jaques Chirac had
previously (in 2000) called Kyoto "the first component of an authentic global
governance." [Ref.24], while Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen
Harper, refered to the Kyoto accord as: "Kyoto is essentially a
socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations". [Ref.25]
The former Canadian
Environment Minister Christine Stewart stated: "No matter if the science is all
phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…. climate change
[provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the
world." [Calgary Herald, December 14, 1998]. In 1974 Maurice
Strong gave a speech at a college in Canada at which he said: “The ethic of abundant resources must give way to
the ethics of scarcity and conservation” … “Economic growth is not the cure, it is the disease”…
“Scientists advise me
that there is a possibility that we may already be in the beginning stages of
a major shift in the dynamics of the earth's climate system” [Ref.21]. Note that 1974 is the
same year as the Time “global cooling” article mentioned near the start of
this document.
So why in little more than a decade after the global
cooling scare of the mid-1970s was the IPCC certain about human-induced global
warming?
In 2004 the United Nations University – World Institute
for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER), published a study into
possible scenarios for implementing a global tax. It states: “How can we find an extra US$50
billion for development funding? Our focus is on flows of resources from
high-income to developing countries…
Any foreseeable global tax will be introduced, not by a unitary world
government, but as the result of concerted action by nation states… The
taxation of environmental externalities is an obvious potential source of
revenue. ... Does this mean that the global tax should be levied at the same
rate on all countries? To the extent that emissions impose environmental
damage wherever they occur, the corrective tax should be the same. However,
this needs to be moderated to take account of the unequal distribution of
world income. Considerations of global justice point to poor countries
bearing less of the cost burden, and may justify the tax being levied only on
high-income or middle-income countries.” [Ref.26]
This really presents the UN’s
view: Unsound science is used by the IPCC to foster “concerted action by
nation states” in order to tax CO2 emissions (excluding low-income countries
in consideration of “global justice”) and transfer that money to poor
countries. They are not actually concerned about the CO2 – just the money: “We are presupposing that the
tax is indeed levied on individuals and firms in the form of a carbon levy…
Suppose, however, that we have subsidiarity, where the burden on national
governments is determined by their carbon emissions, but the national
governments are free to decide how to raise the revenue. As noted above, they
may for political or other reasons choose another taxbase.”
Another UNU-WIDER publication
states: “Support for an international
‘carbon tax’ has been growing since the 1992 UN Earth Summit focused
international attention on the damage to the environment caused by excessive use of fossil fuels worldwide. … Over
20 per cent of the tax yields would originate in the US … Distributionally the tax will
be regressive, since fuel bills typically form a disproportionately
larger portion of the budget of low-income groups as compared to high-income
groups.“ So although the only actual carbon-based “damage to the
environment” so far is due to deforestation for charcoal and subsistence
farming in poor countries, the US will be the major payer, and the American
poor will be the worst off as a result.
The Executive Secretary of the
UNFCCC is Yvo de Boer, a former Dutch public housing bureaucrat who joined
the Dutch environment ministry ("To
my great amazement, I got the job. I knew nothing about climate change,
absolutely nothing," he said in an interview. [Ref.39]). The
Economic Times article [Ref.39] states: “In
the mid-1990s, global warming was only beginning to register on the Richter
scale of international concerns, and de Boer's was mainly interested in
how efforts to cut carbon pollution might intersect with development goals.
… "What is sometimes forgotten is that a large part of this process is
about how 145 very poor countries are going to adapt to the impact of climate
change and be helped to grow their economies in a cleaner way," he said.”
Many UN people involved in the
global warming scare now join the Global Humanitarian Forum when they leave
the UN – see http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/HumanImpact.htm#forum
for details on this “shadow” UN.
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Kyoto
The Kyoto protocol was created
in 1997. It used 1990 as the basis year for achieving reductions in CO2. Why
1990? That way the EU could take advantage of the reductions in CO2 already
made in the closing of communist era industries after the fall of the Berlin
wall and the Soviet Union. Jun Arima, lead negotiator for Japan's energy
ministry said: "The
base year of 1990 was very advantageous to European countries. In the UK, you
had already experienced the 'dash for gas' from coal - then in Germany they merged
Eastern Germany where tremendous restructuring occurred.” [Ref.36] The
following table provides some examples illustrating this [Ref 37]:
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U.S. Efforts
The Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) [Ref.27] bills itself
as “the world’s first and North America’s only voluntary,
legally binding integrated greenhouse gas emissions reduction, registry and
trading system. … The founder,
Chairman and CEO of CCX is economist and financial innovator Dr. Richard L.
Sandor, who was named a Hero of the Planet by Time Magazine in 2002 for
founding CCX, and in 2007 as the "father of carbon trading." CCX
and the European Climate Exchange (ECX), now the leading exchange operating
in the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme are owned by Climate Exchange
Plc, a publicly traded company listed on the AIM of the London Stock
Exchange.
CCX directors include Maurice Strong (who is now
capitalizing on his UN work to establish a carbon tax), as well as Stuart Eizenstat,
who “has held a number of
key positions at senior levels in the U.S. Government. During the Clinton
Administration he served as U.S. Ambassador to the European Union
(1993-1996), Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade (1996-97);
Under Secretary of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs
(1997-99), … [he] was also Chief Domestic Policy Adviser and Executive
Director of the White House Domestic Policy Staff for President Jimmy Carter
(1977-1981). Ambassador Eizenstat played a prominent role in the development
of key international initiatives, including and the negotiation of the Kyoto
Protocol on global warming, where he led the US delegation.”
CCX external advisors include Strong’s cohort Elizabeth Dowdeswell, who
is “a former Executive
Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Before joining
UNEP, Ms. Dowdeswell was the Assistant Deputy Minister of Environment Canada.
In that capacity she played a leading role in global efforts to negotiate the
treaty on climate change adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development. She was Canada's permanent representative to the
World Meteorological Organization, principal delegate to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change”. The connection to the UN
goes back to the 1992 UN Rio Earth Summit, when Climate Exchange delivered a paper
on the “feasibility of a
market-based solution to global warming”. [Ref.31]
For more information on CCX and other companies benefiting
from the global warming scam, see www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/CarbonMonetization.htm.
Follow the money – the creators of the phony global
warming scare stories have done so for a very lucrative purpose.
In 2007 the World Resources Institute received a $750,000
dollar two-year grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF) to “demonstrate the need
for a mandatory federal greenhouse gas registry that is consistent with
global greenhouse gas accounting standards. Such a registry will provide the
foundation for measuring and tracking major emission sources and will be the
basis for a federal cap-and-trade program”. According to Joan Spero,
president of DDCF “In
the immediate term, one of the most important things we can do to combat the
threat of climate change is to design and implement the best possible pricing
policies for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases”. This is part
of DDCF’s $100 million Climate Change Initiative [Ref.30].
In 1990, the United States
Congress enacted the Global Change Research Act, which required the
administration to report annually on funding for climate change science.
According to a 2005 General Accounting Office report [Ref.28], “Federal
climate change funding, as reported by OMB, increased from $2.35 billion in
1993 to $5.09 billion in 2004“. The following table is from that
report (NOAA is within the Dept. of Commerce).
The federally run U.S. Climate Change Science Program
(CCSP) coordinates the scientific activities of some 13 federal government
agencies and departments [Ref.29]: “Over
roughly the past 15 years, the United States has invested heavily in
scientific research, monitoring, data management, and assessment for climate
change analyses to build a foundation of knowledge for decision making. To
date, more than $20 billion of research funding has been provided by U.S.
agencies and departments.”
Also in 1990, the Clean Air Act amendments authorized the
Environmental Protection Agency to put a cap on the quantity of pollutants
the operator of a fossil-fueled plant was allowed to emit. In the early 1990s
Enron helped establish the market for, and became the major trader in, EPA’s
$20 billion-per-year sulfur dioxide cap-and-trade program. This cap and trade
exchange of NOx and SO2 emission allowances caused Enron’s stock to rapidly
rise. It was the forerunner of today’s CO2 trading, now taken up by CCX.
Enron was a promoter of the Kyoto Protocol since it would increase their
profits. Enron’s Ken Lay had meetings with Clinton and Gore to try to get Kyoto
promoted: “Enron
officials later expressed elation at the results of the Kyoto conference. An
internal memo said the Kyoto agreement, if implemented, would "do more
to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory initiative
outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries in Europe and
the United States."” [See Ref.34]
At the turn of the 21st century, “California experienced rolling power blackouts,
moth-balled power plants that lacked nitrous oxide controls were brought back
online, and their owners scrambled for nitrous emission permits for those
plants and paid up to 10-fold increases for allowances. … Enron was gaming
California's power market to drive power prices sky high and in turn prices
for emissions permits.” [Ref.33]. Will this type of situation happen
again with CO2 ?
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California has
introduced a measure for government oversight as part of the CO2 trading. She
said: “This
landmark legislation will not only significantly reduce our nation’s carbon
footprint, it will also generate tremendous economic potential. In fact, new
carbon markets – with annual values of approximately $300 billion – are
expected to emerge once Congress establishes a cap-and-trade program for
greenhouse gas emissions.” [Ref.32]
The Blood and Gore team (Generation
Investment Management, with chairman Al Gore and managing partner David Blood
– a former CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management) has purchased almost ten
percent of Camco Group [Ref. 35], which, according to the Camco website: “works closely with major
companies worldwide, establishing partnerships to turn our clients’ climate
change liabilities into economic, social and environmental assets.” Camco Group states: “We generate carbon credits by partnering with companies to identify,
develop and manage projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Camco then
arranges the sale and delivery of carbon credits to international compliance
buyers and into the voluntary market.” The
Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) selected Camco as the
Official Carbon Advisor for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, to be
held August in Denver “As
the Official Carbon Advisor, Camco will work with the DNCC to estimate the
Convention's carbon footprint”.
Maurice strong is at the forefront of the CO2
monetization. His closing remarks at the 2007 International Financial Forum
global conference: “I
have to disclose my own association with this process in my earlier role in
the United Nations negotiations which established the basis for the
development of these new opportunities and now as Chairman of the China
Carbon Corporation and Vice-Chairman of the Chicago Climate Exchange.”
[Ref.38]
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The UNFCCC confab was in Poznan, Poland December 2008. BBC
environment correspondent Richard Black was unable to make it back to Poznan
on Dec. 8 as a result of CO2 protesters disrupting London’s Stansted Airport
[http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/richardblack/].
He talked about how “a
long-running dispute between developed and developing countries over how to
manage the UN Adaptation Fund which channels money from the international
carbon market into climate protection, appears still to be a live issue. The
developed countries paying the money regard it as theirs; but so do the
developing nations, who argue that it is merely what the west owes them
for having created the problem of man-made climate change.”
The NGO climate network prepared a newsletter [http://www.climatenetwork.org/eco/poznan-ecos/Eco6can-talk.pdf]
reporting:
“As Japan so charmingly put it,
they can’t be expected to become “the ATM for the world.”
“Study after study has confirmed how massive the
needs truly are, with last month’s updated financial flows paper from the
UNFCCC Secretariat just the latest example. The Secretariat’s report
states that the estimates of adaptation funding needs alone remain in the
tens, and possibly hundreds, of billions of dollars per year. And the
paper is crystal clear about where the responsibility lies, stating that “it
is increasingly important” to determine how developed countries will support
developing countries in adapting to and mitigating climate changes.”
“Developing countries are approaching the climate
problem constructively, advancing serious, ambitious and realistic proposals
and ideas. It is now time for an equally serious response from developed
countries. Finance ministers should not shirk their duty to ensure that
resources are made available, adequate to addressing the adaptation and
mitigation needs of developing countries. This requires the willingness to
commit to generating hundreds of billions of dollars annually, which should
be governed by an accountable UNFCCC financial mechanism.”
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So who will win in this battle to monetize the carbon?
While science was killed as an innocent bystander, the UN with its desire for
funding via international taxation vies with exchange corporations who want a
piece of the new $300 billion market. (See also: www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/CarbonMonetization.htm)
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